You provided a source designed to make a mockery of gun control efforts in Colorado that was misleading. Rape seminars have provided these recommendations for years, all around the country. Your source made it look like my State government was suggesting that since guns may be prohibited on campus, women should learn to vomit on command.

Wonderful contribution to the dialogue. (heavy sarcasm if you don't get it)

I happen to disagree with that particular bill and so may the Gov of Colo. But, it doesn't help my cause (and likely yours) to belittle the arguments and the process.

CB--I didn't think it needed to be pointed out that the advice on avoiding rape, whacky as it is, has nothing to do with either the legislature in Colorado or gun control. In fact, I want the wing nuts to keep saying stupid things and hating on Obama. It means they will lose most of the political struggles in the next four years. Today's news in California for the Field Poll: approval ratings for Obama at 62%. Disapproval ratings for Congress at 69%. Might that have something to do with Republican obstruction? You think? http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/20/5202148/field-poll-obamas-approval-rating.html

You may be correct. But, we need both parties to provide balance in this country. With the nut jobs from the right running the Repub. dialogue, as evidenced here, there is real risk that any conservative ideas will be ignored or dismissed.

" With the nut jobs from the right running the Repub. dialogue, as evidenced here, there is real risk that any conservative ideas will be ignored or dismissed.

These guys just don't get it."

I wholeheartedly agree. Moreover, if conservative ideas don't change and begin to attract real bi-partisan support, they don't have a chance to gain acceptance and grow. Listening to Senator Mario Rubio's Republican response to President Obama State of the Union address, aside from his bottled water gaffe, lacked anything new and substantive. The continual recycling such tired dialog that has proven to be bankrupt and ineffective is a pathway to nowhere.

CB and SW--I agree. Some of the politicians I knew and respected most were moderate Republicans. Tended to libertarian in matters of personal behavior, fiscally conservative, thoughtful, and part of the Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservation. But over the past thirty years the party has been hijacked by the know-nothings, the whackiest of the evangelicals, and the most unprincipled of businesses.

There is a very important voice for business in understanding and explaining calmly to the rest of us what government should not do. At present, that voice is compromised utterly by the wholesale repeating of lies by the oil and coal companies and Murdoch. He brought the English phenomenon, where the press was partisan rather than striving to present both sides, and our politics and character are weaker for his presence.

The PBS special last night on the Sandy Hook shootings was very good. If the gun nuts don't realize that this was an important event, and join the conversation with adult thoughts, we will all be poorer for it.

In the weeks after the election, I listened a lot to conservative talk radio and watched as much Fox news as I could stomach. Almost universally they blamed the debacle on main stream media and a weak presidential candidate. I continued to hear slurs against immigrants, and cries for them to self deport. Talk about not getting it. Real political junkies, of both parties, parse electoral turn out, exit polls, and demographic change. The real story was 1) the Obama ground game was vastly superior to the "experienced in business" Romney campaign, and had identified their potential voters, and how to reach them, for less than 1/3 what the Reps. spent per vote. 2) the anti-abortion drum beat, in its extreme articulation, along with the anti-birth control language, turned off women more than ever. 3) the hateful and bigoted anti-immigrant messages by the extreme fringe of the Republicans alienated not just the citizens of Hispanic heritage, but those of Chinese and Japanese heritage as well. Those trends are getting harder for the Republicans, which is one of the reasons that the white folks in Arizona and Texas are so fearful and angry.

I would much rather see a moderate gun registration bill, and an equally moderate immigration bill, that represent the areas of agreement, than something endorsed by the left wing of the Democratic party. As the saying goes, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. But for that to happen, the war within the Republican party has to rage for a while. Many, perhaps even most Republicans get it. But they need to explain it to the Tea Party.

Really Mac! At the risk of sounding frivolous may I ask since when has a partisan press (run by an Australian) been solely an English phenomenon?

It isn't us who go around exterminating political leaders of a different persuasion, as half the world has traditionally done. (Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me, as Caeser must have shrieked.)

We English merely content ourselves with hurling the tea-pot at the television screen, should some gormless windbag politician intrude into our homes. (It's the mention of windmills that set me frothing at the mouth, and ruin my digestion!!)

Ten seconds is not enough to read for comprehension as most of us already know.
Mac did not say Murdoch was English.
Right or wrong, he said that the English media focused on catering to political groups and not to the journalistic ideal of presenting balanced factual analysis, and Murdochs news network tossed that ideal.

Too funny. Substantive debate eludes the righties. I said about Murdoch:

Quote:

He brought the English phenomenon

He also runs the Sun, and other English papers which are, by design and tradition, partisan. Maybe that is so in Australia as well, I don't know. What I do know is that the conservatives who I needle are so eager to find me wrong that they fail to read carefully. Actually, even when they are not eager to find me wrong they fail to read carefully. Is this part of living in a fact free world?

Quite so, K.C.! You say ...'he said the English media focused on catering to political groups and not to the journalistic ideal of presenting balanced analysis...' (Unlike anywhere else in the universe, presumably.)

But that doesn't prevent him from quoting the equally biassed, and often equally head in the sand, extreme left wing Guardian. Or, for that matter, the equally criticized and (now officially recognised and ADMITTED by the B.B.C. heads) left wing dominated B.B.C.

Those of us who live here are well aware of the need to read between the lines in comprehending the truth of what is actually being claimed.

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